2019 UBC Lantern Festival Poetry Night

On Thursday, February 28, the Chinese Language Program hosted the 2019 UBC Lantern Festival Chinese Poetry Night to celebrate the fifteenth day of the first Chinese lunar month at the UBC Asian Centre.

The poetry conference on Lantern Festival day this year is entering its second year. We were proud to have the Department Head of Asian Studies, Dr. Ross King, to kick-start the event with an opening speech.

Just like the theme of this year’s event unveils, “Now the dusk descends, let’s meet the Moon!” On this special eve, people gathered in the Auditorium, solved Lantern riddles, and enjoyed a poetic night with the Asian Studies.

This year’s Poetry Night included a good mixture of exciting poetry contest and splendid recitals of Chinese poems. Our top-notch contestants were carefully selected from the UBC Chinese course to bring us beautiful performances and intense competition. These individuals’ passion for poems left many audiences immersed in an extreme distillation in vocabulary and form.

Keith Xu 《回答》北岛 The Answer – Bei Dao

Lin Song《鹊桥仙》秦观 Fairy Of The Magpie Bridge – Qin Guan

Yanting Pan《雨霖鈴》柳永Lyrics to Tinkling Heavy Rain – Liu Yong

Yiwen Zheng 《江城子.记梦》苏轼 Lyrics to the Melody of a River Town – Su Shi

Yue Qi 《水调歌头》苏轼 Water Song – Su Shi

The exciting competition and incredible performances inspired many people and allowed them to appreciate the beauty of Chinese classical poetry. As a highlight of the event, colourful lanterns were displayed in the Asian Centre Auditorium, and hundreds of colourful slips of paper with poetry lines printed on them, decorated on flower strings, were hanging from the ceiling. Audiences were invited to search for poetry lines to reassemble the original classical poem. Accompanying with graceful Chinese classical music, they were excited about reading and searching for the poetries. Those who successfully reassembled a poem won exquisite Chinese style souvenirs. In addition, UBC Hanfu Culture Society celebrated the festive occasion with us by gracing us with their gorgeous performance. Everyone enjoyed a poetic and inspirational evening at the Lantern Festival Poetry Night.

Huge thanks to all participating students for their splendid recital as it was a revel experience for audiences. Apart from the help and support we obtained from our faculty members, Teaching Assistants and Work-Learns, we would like to thank our wonderful volunteers and students for assisting and putting the event together. We would like to thank you for joining us on this enjoyable evening and wish to see you again next year!